Genesis 25:12

Summary

The verse introduces a genealogical section by naming Ishmael as son of Abraham, and identifying his mother Hagar as the Egyptian maidservant of Sarah who bore him to Abraham.

Key words

• to.le.Dot ("[the] accounts of", H8435) — feminine plural construct form of the noun for generations/genealogical records; being construct, it must attach to the following name, producing "accounts of Ishmael."
• ben- ("[the] son of", H1121A) — masculine singular construct, linking Ishmael directly to Abraham as a genealogical chain within the same clause.
• yal.Dah ("she bore", H3205) — qal perfect, third person feminine singular, marking a completed past action performed by a female subject (Hagar).
• shif.Chat ("[the] maidservant of", H8198) — feminine singular construct, binding Hagar's status to Sarah ("maidservant of Sarah") before the sentence returns to Abraham.
• 'a.Sher ("whom", H0834A) — relative particle introducing the subordinate clause that specifies who bore Ishmael and to whom.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the formulaic ve-'Elleh to.le.Dot ("and these [are] the accounts of"), a construction that in the Hebrew Bible regularly marks the start of a genealogical unit. The construct chain to.le.Dot Yishma'El ben-'Avraham stacks two relationships in sequence: the "accounts" belong to Ishmael, and Ishmael is identified as "son of Abraham" — both ties expressed through construct forms rather than separate possessive phrases.

The second half of the verse is a relative clause introduced by 'a.Sher ("whom"), which specifies the mother: yal.Dah Hagar ha-Mitz.Rit ("Hagar the Egyptian bore"). Here yal.Dah is a qal perfect verb agreeing with the feminine subject Hagar, describing a completed act of bearing a child. Hagar's identity is further qualified by another construct phrase, shif.Chat Sarah ("maidservant of Sarah"), before the clause closes with le-'Avraham ("to Abraham"), marking Abraham as the recipient/father. The verse thus uses a chain of construct nouns (to.le.Dot, ben-, shif.Chat) to compress multiple family relationships into a single compact sentence, a feature that Hebrew syntax allows without additional linking words such as "of" — those relationships are carried by the construct grammatical form itself.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders to.le.Dot ("accounts of") with genesis (γενέσεις, "generations/origins"), a term that in Greek carries a slightly broader semantic range than the Hebrew construct noun. The Vulgate uses generationes, following the LXX's sense of "generations" rather than "accounts" or "records." The Hebrew relative clause structure ('a.Sher yal.Dah, "whom she bore") is rendered in the LXX with a relative pronoun (hon) followed by a noun phrase without a finite verb of bearing explicitly repeated, while the Vulgate supplies quem peperit ("whom she bore"), keeping the verbal action explicit as in the Hebrew.